James Lileks nails it! Some "real conservatives" need to get a clue, buy a vowel, or both.
The enemy of our enemy is our President. Perfect!
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Posted on 02/14/2004 9:25:22 PM PST by lilylangtree
Let's just be blunt: The North Koreans would love to see John Kerry win the election. The mullahs of Iran would love it. The Syrian Ba'athists would sigh with relief. Every enemy of America would take great satisfaction if the electorate rejects the Bush doctrine and scuttles back to hide under the U.N. Security Council's table. It's a hard question, but the right one: Which candidate does our enemy want to lose? George W. Bush.
And some conservatives will be happy to help, it seems.
Woe and gloom have befallen some on the right. Bush has failed to act according to The Reagan Ideal.
The actual Reagan may have issued an amnesty for illegals, but the Ideal Reagan would have done no such thing. So unless Bush packs freight cars full of gardeners and dishwashers and dumps them off at the Mexican border, some voters will just sit this one out.
The Ideal Reagan would have eliminated the National Endowment for the Arts; the actual Reagan proposed a $1 million increase in his final budget. But Bush increased NEA funding -- perhaps an attempt to placate people who wouldn't vote for him if he showed up in performance with Karen Finley and a can of Hershey's syrup. So angry conservatives might just sit this one out.
And if a Democrat takes office, and the Michael Moores and Rob Reiners and Martin Sheens crowd the airwaves on Nov. 3 to shout their howls of vindication? If the inevitable renaissance of Iraq happens on Kerry's watch, and the economy truly picks up steam in the first few years before the business cycle and Kerry's tax hikes kick in? If emboldened Islamist terrorists smell blood and strike again? Fine. Maybe the next Republican president will do everything they want.
Oh, sure, Bush is fine on the foreign affairs stuff, and yes, there's a partial-birth abortion law, and the tax cuts were nice, and come to think of it, Sept. 11 wasn't followed by blow after blow after blow, for some reason. The nation endures, at least at press time. But that's hardly enough. Where's that bill requiring 60-foot Ten Commandments monuments in every capitol rotunda? Let Kerry win. Teach the GOP a lesson, it will.
So both sides have elements that seem unserious about the defining issue of the day: the war. But the right's malcontents snipe from humid redoubts of Internet message boards. The left's biggest spokesmen are parading their delusions.
No less than Al Gore has practically accused the president of treason. In a Feb. 8 speech in Tennessee, Gore went on an alarming rant, performed almost in an arr-matey pirate voice. ‘‘He betrayed this country!” Gore bellowed. ‘‘He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.”
We've been manipulated into a state of fear, Gore shouted. Really. Which administration spent most of 1998 warning us about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, only to launch some missiles and walk away? Gore saw all the intel on WMDs. Gore was part of an administration that pushed for regime change because it viewed Saddam, correctly, as a danger to the region and to America. Does Gore think we don't remember everything Democrats said about Saddam and WMDs, when they felt responsible for the nation?
As for that state of fear, well, anyone out there feel afraid of Saddam today? Didn't think so.
Gore should give this speech at the convention. Why not? Why not stand up and give vent to all the poisons hatching in the muck? Why not tell America that Bush lied about everything, that he took the country to war for reasons he knew would be discredited, just so Halliburton could make another buck or two? It's what they seem to believe, after all. The delusions of their fringe have become articles of faith for the mainstream. Bush was AWOL! Bush knew! Bush lied! Bush never flosses! Skull and Bones! Plastic turkey!
At least we'll have a clear choice in November. Bush is serious about the war. The Democrats are serious about the war against Bush.
James Lileks nails it! Some "real conservatives" need to get a clue, buy a vowel, or both.
The enemy of our enemy is our President. Perfect!
Be Seeing You,
Chris
From the article:
"The actual Reagan may have issued an amnesty for illegals, but the Ideal Reagan would have done no such thing. So unless Bush packs freight cars full of gardeners and dishwashers and dumps them off at the Mexican border, some voters will just sit this one out."
It ain't the gardeners and dishwashers per se that are the problem. It is the open border and lax enforcement that also allows countless thieves, rapists, and murderers to enter as well. And what about terrorists coming in? Oh well, we'll just treat every American as a terrorist and catch them AFTER they get here. And yes, even the gardeners and the dishwashers broke the law coming here too. I have a little more compassion for them as they want a better life for their families, but so have all the LEGAL immigrants that waited and obeyed the law. We also have the benefit of hindsight. Reagan's amnesty was wrong, but the arguement could be made to try it and see if it worked. Now we know that it doesn't, so Bush's *amnesty* fails doubly.
"The Ideal Reagan would have eliminated the National Endowment for the Arts; the actual Reagan proposed a $1 million increase in his final budget. But Bush increased NEA funding . . ."
I don't recall what the NEA budget was under Reagan, but I know that any increase was enough to make this conservative angry. Bush wants an 18% increase. That is just plain ludicrous and a slap in the face to conservatives. Where is the Constitutional authority for 'art' funding? Can we say "principle"? That is why we are angry.
"Oh, sure, Bush is fine on the foreign affairs stuff, and yes, there's a partial-birth abortion law, and the tax cuts were nice,... ...Let Kerry win. Teach the GOP a lesson, it will."
These things were good. No doubt about it, but it is what we voted for and expected.
There are many here who claim that they aren't happy with everything that this President has done and have made any number of excuses for him. Worse, though, they have pledged their undying support for him. "no matter what", they clamored, "Bush gets their vote". Some of us b*tched, moaned, complained, and even threatened or promised to withhold our vote. Now from the WH we hear they we have been heard. They are paying attention. The truth is that they've angered enough of us that they are finally worried about reelection.
But whose actions do you suppose moved the WH team to start paying attention and begin (or at least promise) to start reining in the spending? Was it the Bush_at_any_cost supporters or was it the Bush_can_go_to_blazes Bush bashers?
I dispise the Democrats. Many of them belong in front of a firing squad for their treasonous actions and I would never want any of them to be POTUS any more than I'd want another term for clinton (except 25 to life at Leavenworth). But any time any group pledges their support *no matter what* they marginalize themselves. That's what you've (not you personally) done by not demanding better from Bush.
I still don't know how I will vote. I do believe in redemption, but I have to see action and not just words from Bush or any othe politician. So whether we end with kerryoredwardsorclintonorsharpton is not up to me and my fellow critics. It's up to Bush and his team.
Of course I fault the Congress as much as Bush. The "Contract with America" Republicans who stunned the country by taking control of Congress in 1994 have morphed into (or been revealed as) free-spending pork-barrel politicians every bit as bad as the Democrats. But Bush deserves his share of the blame: He has a veto pen which he has never wielded.
At least under Clinton the Republicans opposed many of his big-spending initiatives and he opposed many of theirs. The result was that the federal budget grew at a much slower rate than under Bush, and we went from huge budget deficits to big surpluses. Now, under unified Republican control of government, we have enormous budget deficits planned for as far as the eye can see.
I'm not saying that spending and deficits should be the only criteria for judging Bush. For example, I'm very happy that he pushed through tax cuts to the maximum extent that he could obtain from Congress. But spending and deficits are nevertheless a very important consideration, and they are an area where Bush and the Republican Congress have failed miserably.
I made the assumption since it was the Spokesman Review that the writer was from Spokane. I see now that he is a syndicated writer and the Spokesman Review evidently just picked up his article. Anyway I was just pinging CyberCowboy to use his Washington state list to draw attention to the article.
He has the names of the Washington people on a list and then he just puts it into the To:slot and they will all see it.
Let's not forget the French.
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